(first posted 7/17/2013) While slowing down at an intersection, two different shades of red caught the corner of my eye. Instead of going to the more visually appealing brighter red, my eyes focused in on the darker tone because it was on a Corsica. Then, after taking notice of its neighbor, a similar vintage Cavalier Z24, I wondered if I’d just walked into an early-1990s Chevy dealership.

Just the other day I had been reading through my over 100-page 1990 Chevrolet brochure, and when I came to the Corsica, I thought, “Damn–I haven’t seen one of those in ages!” And now, only a few days later, here was one! I couldn’t have cared less about the more common (and thus less interesting) Cavalier; had it only been a Beretta, the pairing would be a true gem. Nonetheless, I couldn’t pass on this duo.

The one-generation Chevrolet Corsica was around for an unusually long 10 years. Sold from 1988 through 1996, its official showroom debut was in spring 1987, even though it had been available for rental-car fleet sales as early as (gasp) the fall of 1986.

The Corsica was initially available as a four-door sedan; the similarly styled, mechanically identical Beretta coupe was covered here.

A Corsica five-door hatchback was added in 1989. Cleverly styled, with a large glass hatch disguising the fact that it was a hatchback, the Corsica five-door boasted more than double the cargo capacity of the sedan. Even so, it didn’t catch on and was dropped after ’91. A rebadged sedan version, the Pontiac Tempest, was sold in Canada from 1988-91.

Over the course of its run, styling changes were limited to grilles, moldings, and taillight treatments. While not Taurus-radical, the Corsica’s crisp styling was aero-influenced nevertheless, especially in the ’89 and ’90 LTZ models with their grille-less front end. The LTZ also included a stiffer suspension, an upgraded interior with contoured bucket seats, 15” aluminum wheels, attractive red exterior accents and, yes, a luggage rack.

One design element has always turned me off: the small, non-wraparound headlights always gave off an unnecessarily angry look that was uncharacteristic of a small, mainstream sedan. That’s the reason I didn’t like these cars when I was a kid. For some reason, the Beretta got slightly taller headlights that were not only better looking, but a better fit with the coupe’s styling.

Looking online and in brochures for model year changes revealed some Corsica discrepancies; for instance, the taillights, interior, and wheels seen on this car weren’t ever offered for the same model year. Of the three, I’ll bet my money that only the interior is original (curiously, however, the front passenger’s seat is missing).

This one has the 1991-1996 dashboard. Rounder than the original, it contains a driver’s-side airbag. Also, the front seat belts are mounted to the B-pillars and are non-motorized, pegging this one as a 1991-1993 model.

It does, however possess the pre-1991 smooth taillights with Chevrolet bow-ties. Those on 1991-1996 Corsicas were grooved, eschewed the Chevy bow-tie, but were identically sized and shaped, making it likely that this Corsica wears replacement lenses.

From further research, I discovered that these alloy wheels weren’t even available on the Corsica but, coincidentally, could be had on a pre-1991 Cavalier Z24.

The Cavalier Z24 is a little harder to place, since not much changed from 1991-1994. It really could represent any one of those years.

Again, I probably wouldn’t have given the Cavalier a second glance had it not been for the Corsica sitting two feet away from it. To me, its Z24 designation is just lipstick on a pig. These J-body econoboxes were the cheapest way to put oneself into a new Chevy in the early ‘90s–and some four million of them were sold from 1982-1994 alone.

Despite negligible changes over what was basically a 10-year run, the Corsica and Beretta had combined annual sales of 200,000 units or more–although fleet sales probably comprised a huge chunk of sales. Even so, that’s still impressive when you consider how outdated the Corsica had become by the time Chevy pulled the plug in 1996.

I can’t imagine a Chevy salesman trying to push a boxy little Corsica sitting next to a swoopy Cavalier or Lumina in the showroom, which probably explains why so few Corsicas remain on the roads. They were probably driven into the ground fairly early as rental cars. Little old ladies and high school/college students drove the only “civilian” Corsicas I’ve ever known of.

The Corsica is still an interesting car, and I appreciate it much more now than I did 15 years ago. The hatchback is especially fascinating; I remember my amazement when I passed one on the highway a few years back. Until then, I had no idea Chevy had ever made one. It also should be noted that the Corsica had no other non-Chevrolet platform mates (excepting the Tempest), and that’s something quite uncharacteristic of a GM sedan.

Wow, that is almost a Twilight Zone like find having those two parked next to each other.

The Corsica was a handsome car. The only thing that bothered me about it was the rear window trunklid and quarter panel treatment that seemed a little awkward from certain angles. The hatchback style fixed it somewhat, but not enough.

The LTZ was a nice looker. Just enough different to make it look a little upmarket and have a slightly sporty edge to it. The “sporty looking” mid-line sedan was something only the Domestics were doing then. GM in particular always massaged alot of the trim, wheels etc… to really give the LTZ’s, GS’s, STE’s a edge over the lower priced models in the looks and details department. I miss those days.

The original intention of the Corsica was to be the Citation replacement, so they penned the 5 door hatch from the start of the design process, but somewere along the line it became a sedan with a 5 door counterpart, but the hatch Corsica was a slow seller and dropped after a few years.

The Corsica hatch is on my short list of cars to find still on the road.

The thing I liked about the C/B was that no other GM division had one. It was part of the equation when I bought one new in ’89. I got a good one; it rolled for 150,000 low-trouble miles over the 8 years I owned it and drove it daily.

Don’t forget that Chevy redesigned the dash of the Corsica/Beretta somewhere during the car’s life. I liked the original dash better. Otherwise, yes, Chevy left these cars alone across their life spans. I’m sure that in these cars’ last few years, they were pure profit for GM.

“I’m sure that in these cars’ last few years, they were pure profit for GM.”

And that was the problem. GM stopped worrying about the buyers who had left, and didn’t care if those who stayed ever wanted another GM product. They didn’t know, or more likely care, that dumping 40% of your production into daily rental absolutely kills resale value for those who bought retail.

Staff collected their paychecks, bonuses, stock options and pensions and the mess got dumped on the next gen. A couple of rounds of that behavior and the company was bankrupt.

If you are an American tax payer you should be POed for having to cover a a portion of the pension cost for workers after the bankruptcy. Thankfully the PBGC did not have to cover the non-qualified extra pensions that execs received, but did not deserve.

What’s with them being available to fleets before the public? Was that typical at the time? If not, did GM originally intend the Corsica to be a fleet only model, but changed their mind once they realized that coupes were becoming less popular than sedans, and selling only the Beretta to the public wouldn’t cut it?

I seem to remember that part of it was what we’d now call “social media promotion” – get the vehicle out so people can see and drive it before the dealer’s have them, build up a demand prior to selling it. Without the Internet, putting them in rental fleets was one of the easiest ways to do it.

Also, keep in mind that the current “heavy fleet sales = pathetic car” attitude that is so prevalent in car blogs didn’t exist back then. A sale was a sale was a sale in the thinking of the time; and fleet sales weren’t a convenient excuse to negatively blog about a car/manufacturer you hate.

Actually at that time rental car meant pathetic car much more than now. That was the era when all of the big three were buying rental car companies to dump cars on. Part of that was due to the depreciation laws at the time. So they’d crank out a lot of cars to keep those sales numbers looking good then shuffle them off to their captive rental car companies for only a few months. The rental car company takes the depreciation, then sells some of them back to the parent company for sales as “program” cars. Sort of a car laundering scheme. Now the rental car companies aren’t owned by car mfgs and don’t get near the discounts they used to, have to sell more of their cars on their own and usually keep them for much more than 3-6 months.

“Sold from 1988 through 1996, its official showroom debut was in spring 1987, even though it had been available for rental-car fleet sales as early as (gasp) the fall of 1986.”

From what I recall, the models that went on sale to the general public in the spring of 1987 were considered to be early 1988 models, while the fleet models that had begun appearing in the fall of 1986 were considered to be 1987 models. In other words, all cars titled as 1987 MY were fleet models.

Others have tackled the question of why GM did this, but it was not typical of the time. To the extent that certain models have been fleet-only over the years, it has usually been aging designs that were nearing the end of the line, not brand new ones.

Now that I stop and think about it, I can’t come up with a single example of a model line being sold on a fleet-only basis prior to the Corsica/Beretta.

I think there was also an element of wanting to work the bugs out before the first cars went to retail customers, a lesson GM had learned the hard way, repeatedly.
They probably thought it was as close as they could get to the Japanese companies’ practice of not releasing a new model on the US market until it had been in production in Japan for a year.

I was excited to see one of these for the first time on my company’s parking lot after they came out.

The overall design was interesting, but some of the details stuck in my craw, as it were. Mainly, it was the wheelwells, and specifically the absence of a raised lip around them. They simply looked hacked out as a hot-rodder does to an old car when wanting to put gargantuan wide tires or slicks on his car. That feature just didn’t sit well with me.

The proportions also weren’t quite right – the rear wheels were set in too far forward and made the car look somewhat awkward-looking, but I eventually forgave that.

Overall though, I more-or-less accepted the car but have never driven one.

Still haven’t gotten over those wheelwells…

Around 1990 or so, there was a review of the Beretta in the newspaper, and they compared it with what a 1969 Chevelle would look like fast-forwarded 20 years or so into the future, due to general downsizing – and at least as fast with the performance options! I guess they were right in a sense.

Still, these cars couldn’t quite pull me out of my anti-GM hate at the time, but I was hoping, and cracks in my demeanor began to manifest itself. I was still 90% Chrysler at the time.

The other 10%? Ford… I hungerd over the box panthers! How’s THAT grab ya?

I never noticed before how far forward the rear wheel wells are – and now I can’t unsee how awkward it looks!

Off-rental ’96 Corsicas were a surprisingly strong seller at the Chevy store I worked at in 1997. Those who couldn’t get bought on a new Cavy or Malibu could usually get into a Corsica with about 38,000 miles on the odometer.

They (and Berettas) had their charms, but overall these cars really were garbage when compared to almost any other competitor.

We sold the crap out of those cars back then. Used to go out to the GM auction every Weds and buy 10-15 of them every single week. Run an ad $7995, 10 to choose from” (or whatever the going rate was then). But we only took as many new Corsica’s as we could get away with.

Berettas, on the other hand, sold pretty well new. Hottest seller was a V6 GT Coupe as I recall.

I had a Corsica, maybe a 95- I can’t remember. I picked it up for $200 because the owner thought the head gasket needed to be replaced again and they had already purchased another car. Turns out a water pump did the trick, along with a few dollars in touch up paint and a other small maintenance items. It was a good car until the subframe rusted away.

I liked the simple styling and interior layout. It was fairly comfortable and the 4 cylinder models were super easy to work on. The biggest beef I had with the Corsica/Beretta was where the steering rack was placed on the firewall. The tie rod adjustments were high on the strut assembly. In the rust belt the fickle adjusters froze and made for a real bitch performing alignments. Now that I think of it, same goes for the Cavalier pictured above.

It was good car, and I always liked them, especially the hatch model, I thought the 5 door was the looker over the more homely sedan, and the Beretta was a good looker as well.

I saw a Beretta on the road a couple months ago and was again struck at how good looking they were. Like the Cavalier, how they aged greatly depended on how the owner took care of it, just a bit of love and a wash/wax every so often kept them looking great, otherwise if they were neglected they went to the gutter quickly.

Oh yeah, though we crammed 2-3 teenagers and the instructor into the Beretta, it was bad when we had 3 tall guys to shove into it. though I did all my road driving towards the end of the night so I could drive myself home, there wasn’t as many kids wanting to go out driving at 8pm.

I never thought it was slow, but then again, I had been learning to drive Mom and Dads old ’76 Chevelle and its 305 wasn’t exactly a tire-burner at the time ( I did wake it up later in its life..) I don’t recall it being much faster than the C/B cars in drivers ed at the time.

Add me to the list of Corsica driver’s ed trainees. The one we had was the same color as the feature car.

My favorite moment was riding in the backseat with another fella while the driver reversed out of a parking spot. The car was moving, but us backseat riders just rose up in the air—he had forgotten to release the parking brake. I can’t imagine how far those rear wheels were tucked up under the car if we could have seen it from the outside!

Add me to the list of Corsica Drivers’s Ed Students! Our high school had the passenger side brake pedal installed in ours. Navy blue with matching velour interior. I remember that weird wiper / light control dials on the dashboard instantly.

In my area, it seems like these were only used for rentals, driver’s ed, and government / US Army staff cars (after the K cars were retired). Berettas on the other hand were often driven by high school or college kids. I knew a few people that had them, mostly girls. Same goes for the Cavalier Z24.

The love of my life drove a Baretta when I first met her and we spent quite a bit of time in it during those romantic years. It was always a good looking car – the Baretta – but it had too much plastic across the backend. This was a version of what the Opel had, except the Opel didn’t have the entire backend filled with black plastic. The other styling detail that made it stand out oddly was the low beltline across the back side windows. The overall appearance was very simple, minimal and cleanly attractive.

But it wasn’t built with high quality parts. While the big four cylinder never failed, the rest of the car just fell apart. The plastics used couldn’t take it. They fragmented into tiny pieces when you pressed upon them. The dashboard curled, discolored and emitted a greasy vapor that you wouldn’t have noticed if not for the slimy greasy mist appearing on the inside windshield. The dash turned sticky during the summer. The headliner collapsed. The plastic used on the doors, and side panels in the back began looking like old crackled skin.

When we traded her car in, the body had stopped being solid enough to hold rear shocks and rusted out across the frame. The front end became dangerous as well. I’ll never forget the day I discovered that the car’s grille had become soft, warped and sagged like it was melting.

It wasn’t unusual for a whiff of gray smoke to suddenly appear behind the steering wheel and one could hear fuses snapping after a few minutes of driving the car everyday.

It was in many ways a typical late 20th Century GM product. It was engineered solidly and conservatively, then assembled using the poorest, cheapest-quality crap found. The lifecycle of these vehicles was three years – five, tops.

“Despite negligible changes over what was basically a 10-year run, the Corsica and Beretta had combined annual sales of 200,000 units or more–although fleet sales probably comprised a huge chunk of sales. Even so, that’s still impressive when you consider how outdated the Corsica had become by the time Chevy pulled the plug in 1996.”

These cars were decent sellers, and as discussed elsewhere in this thread, GM probably made a fair amount of money off of them, since everything about them seemed to be designed to maxmimze profit, including the fact that they were built for so long with so little updating.

Relative to GM’s past presence in this market segment, though, I’d describe their sales as no more than mediocre. Up through the early ’80s, Chevrolet had generally been very competitive in the compact segment, with cars like the Nova (pre-1980 X-body RWD) and Citation. The Citation’s meltdown had obviously scuttled that, and for a few years in the mid 1980s Chevy didn’t really have a true entry in this class, though they had several cars that were close enough in size to arguably cover it to varying extents (Cavalier, Celebrity, NUMMI Nova). I guess the Corsica/Beretta had to be an improvement over the Citation’s last few years and the next couple of years that followed. But its sales seemed underwhelming compared to the presence Chevy had in the past. Then, as they kept building it for so long without updating it, GM seemed to be just conceding this segment, accepting that they wouldn’t have any more than a middling presence in it. The same process seemed to repeat with the Lumina, and over time with the Cavalier.

MA plates stay with the owner, not the car (in some states it is the opposite, as with the California plates discussed in the ’74 Nova thread the other day). So these plates may not have been on these cars since they were new, although it’s certainly possible that they have been. All we can say definitively is that the owners have had an active MA registration on some car continuously at least as far back as the mid 1990s.

I had an 89 Beretta GT 2.8 V6 – automatic.
I loved the way it looked and the way it handled.
It was comfortable and sounded good.

But boy was it put together poorly…

The paint started to flake off after a few years- GM repainted it for me for free
The driver’s door fell off – GM fixed that too.
The driver’s seat broke – GM fixed that.
I had a stalling problem – GM fixed that.

The panel on the driver’s door always popped out – I would just push it back in.

Finally got it rid of it due to a bad head gasket.

Even though I had all those problems I still liked the car a lot.

What my car looked like – except mine didn’t have the luggage rack – loved those rims! (except to clean)

That sounds about right. I’ve held onto mine, 190k miles, it looks good, was my first car and is basically worthless, so it’s stuck around as a spare car. Just had to replace the engine, but at this point that was a $700 problem…

I typically do not like aftermarket wheels but whatever your car’s wearing looks very nice. These were always such attractive cars to me. It’s nice to know a few Beretta owners actually took care of their cars. Yours looks fantastic.

Thanks! They’re some 16″ cheapo brand wheel from Pep Boys I liked the look of 15 years ago when I first got it, I was in a hurry to lose the 14″ steelies. I’d probably put some 16″ Beretta GTU wheels on it now if I could find some, but these have held up.

All in all, not a terrible car. It really moves with the 3100, and with the exhaust I put on it in HS that makes the whole experience much more raucous. Combined with the overall “refinement” GM engineered into it, it drives like something much older than 1994, but it’s got it’s charms like any old car. Fine as a back up car at least…

lol, I remember that, it was around 1990 at the height of the Pro-Street years. I remember a couple of Berettas built by big name builders, along with Grand Ams, Celebrities, and couple of Mopars and some other FWD atrocities of the time, probably with some backing by Detroit to push for support for those cars. Too bad the Berettas/Corsicas weren’t RWD, they weren’t bad looking cars and would have made cool hot rods with a small block.

I owned a 1988 Cavalier Z24 convertible for many years that I have mentioned in posts periodically. The Z24 models from 1985-1994 were something special, definitely a step up from the basic Cavalier when GM actually made them to be baby muscle cars. Considering what was available at the time, especially early on when the Z24 debuted, it was much different than the basic Cavalier. At that time, especially to a younger buyer who might have had their eye on a Camaro but couldn’t quite afford it or who wanted something less of a hit to the pocket book, a Z24 was a good deal. Especially with the 5 speed. My 88 was top of the line, MSRP nearly $17K when the base VL coupe was being advertised at $6995. My convertible was converted by ASC, featured a plush Lear Siegler interior, unique digital dash and console, and the 2.8 H.O. V6 that breathed through the fiberglass hood (real ram air no fake scoops). Of course by the time that I sold it, it was a shadow of its former self wearing a 3400 H.O. out of a Monte Carlo, full Eibach Pro-Kit, 215/45ZR17 Falken tires, and a stainless steel dual Flowmaster exhaust. It looked good, drove good, sounded good, and was incredibly cheap to insure and operate (mileage 18/26). Since everything was off the shelf parts bin, any potential repairs were a non issue. The car was bathed in 6 coats of Corvette Flame Red Metallic. It was a very nice tasteful car that I miss, but at this point in my life, there are more appropriate cars for me and I have many other things to do call punks’ bluffs at street lights. I had $4K in that car and had no problems getting every penny out of it when it came time to sell it. From a respectable guy in his 40s that wanted to do exactly as I did with it 15 years earlier.

As for the Corsica, we have a 1994 Beretta stored behind the shop that will emerge sometime in the near future. It was a one lady owner’s car (retired lady at that!) with a little over 77K. 1994 brought the 4 speed OD automatic and the upgraded 3100 V6. The Corsica and Beretta were not that much heavier than the Cavaliers and the V6 models are comparatively fast for pedestrian models. It is navy blue metallic with sunroof and short spoiler on trunk with upgraded 15″ alloy wheels. It will make a nice sporty inexpensive cruiser for around town soon.

I seem to remember reading somewhere at the time that the Beretta GT did 0 – 60 in 8.6 or 8.8 seconds (can’t remember exactly) but that was the same as the CRX Si – which was considered a “pocket rocket:” back then.

I bought the car for $1100 from a gentleman that I know that circulates in the insurance auction world. The car had a salvage title, mostly because it was stolen and someone cut the plastic window in the back to get in it. They stole the radio, and did a few other relatively minor nefarious things to the car. The car was found after 30 days so the insurance company paid out the owner, they sold the car at auction and I bought it. The car had 174K on it, but it was originally sold in North Carolina so it was completely rust free and with only two owners. I spoke with the previous owner and they said they kept the car under a car port next to the garage and some enterprising kids helped themselves to it.

So I brought it back to the shop, tore it down to nothing, the interior was in excellent condition, I only replaced the carpet, the passenger side power window switch, driver’s side power door lock button, and found a new center surround for the radio which was damaged when the thieves removed the radio. The original 2.8 H.O. ran ok, but with 174K, I decided to go with a newer motor. Virtually every 60* Chevy V6 will drop into a car that originally had one and the family lasted in classic form until the 3.9 of just a few years ago. Finding a 2000+ 3400 HO was not a real problem, one with 63K was found for about $400 wholesale. I resealed the outside of the motor, cleaned the intake, installed an upgraded throttle body, and dropped it into a freshly rebuilt 125C. New motor and trans cost me $1200 cash. The interior refresh cost me about $300. The Eibach kit was about $200, the rest of the suspension about another $250. All the brake parts another $250. Tires and wheels about $500. New paint was about $1000 ($400 supplies/$600 to the painter). C Frederick’s did a new sailcloth top for $850. Basically the car is new except for the body and interior.

The dual Flowmaster exhaust (2 cats) made the car sound like a V8. Of course with the rest of the tweaks including the custom built EPROM and ECU it performed somewhere between a V6 and a V8 Camaro.

I bought it mainly because it was originally dark red (but not metallic) and being a convertible always looks good.

If Tom (or anyone else in the Quad Cities area) gets on the ball on September 28 the V6Z24 club is having their annual meet in Davenport, IA. Its quieter these days (usually 30-40 cars compared to 150-200 10 years ago) but usually very well done Js. Several of the cars will go on the track and to the dyno. If you want to see a J run 13s there is your chance…

It might goo fast in a straight line but try turning it or stopping it, thats right turn hard left at 60mph if it does call me if it doesnt you know why I dont like em

Lt.BrunoStachel

Posted July 17, 2013 at 3:28 PM

Although I have never owned a J,L or N-Body I have spent some time behind the wheel of a few. Hey if you think these cars don’t handle than the equivalent European or Asian FWD, underpowered import doesn’t handle worth a crap either! One car that difinetly sticks out in my escapades is a 95 Beretta GTZ. 180hp Quad4 and 5-speed. One tail wagging happy ride around Topekas 2.5 mile course. Don’t pay any attention to the damn understeer coming out of the 14th turn while the engine is stammering past 7K on the tach and you’ll have the time of your life!

If I was to do what Craig did I’d have to stuff a RPO LGD 230hp 3.9 with a F40(not Ferrari,GM Opel) 6-speed in it. In a Beretta with the import quad headlight front end and amber taillamps.

Given the suspension upgrades and the sticky Falken 45Z tires, the car handled and cornered superbly, limited only by the acceptable body flex being a convertible. I have had it in excess of 85+ (speedometer limited) on the banks of Charlotte Motor Speedway. It’s been dyno’d but not measured Gs but I assume they would be quite competitive with most non exotic small cars.

As for the build, this car was done in the shop with all readily available stuff at very reasonable prices. Minimal modification beyond lowering the suspension a bit with the Eibach kit, tires, and residing a couple of sensors. No grotesque experiments just old fashioned off the shelf parts switching, very efficient, inexpensive yet very effective.

The wheels on that Corsica are some of the worst OE wheels I’ve ever seen. What were they thinking? “You know the problem with most wheels, they are too round looking, why don’t we make some that are square?”

I know they are not originally for that car, which is why I said the wheels on THAT Corsica. Because they are not original it makes it so hard to believe that someone would actually take the effort to ugly up the car even more with them. This from a guy that prefers OE wheels and often put ones on that don’t belong on that particular car. Like Lincoln wheels on my Windstar or Mountianeer, Mustang wheels on my Crown Vic or Turbo Coupe wheels on a V8 T-bird.

The Corsica and Beretta were utterly lame. GM thought the reason Japanese cars were outselling them was for the things-gone-wrong and frequency of repair kind of quality.

GM management, researchers and development teams were so clueless, and obsessed with that being the root cause, that they even made Corsica fleet only at the beginning to work out the bugs before retail sales. But it wasn’t that at all.

It was about things-gone-right. The perceived quality, solidity, seat comfort, fun-to-drive and good ride quality together in the same car and knowing the difference between precision sounds and noise. That last point is really key.

That Cutlass Supreme from yesterday was one of the last great GM cars. The facing Japanese products may have beat it in a few areas but the Cutlass and Regal certainly had wins for their unique American style, refinement, luxury, value and, as it turns out, longevity.

There was nothing good about the Corsica and Beretta. The Beretta styling was pretty but nondescript (another mistake). The sounds from that horrid OHV 4-cylinder were ugly and man was it loud. The V6 had enough torque to jerk the steering wheel when you hit the gas but when you held it down to merge onto a freeway it ran out of steam quickly and just made noise.

I hated these cars with a passion and still do. Anyone who points to GM of the 70s or even 80s as the darkest eras (haven’t seen it much here but have at other places) certainly doesn’t understand this business.

There was no wake up call after these either. Instead truck sales took off and GM cars became even worse.

Have to agree with you on this. I actually find the styling reasonable (the Beretta was good looking IMHO), but the refinement and performance were just pathetic. I drove two rentals in 1988 and that was all the first hand experience I needed. One was a gold Corsica (which we called the CorsiCRAP) with the 2.0L. Loud, anemic and cheap. Literally groaned and roared and barely moved when trying to drive it up in the hills of Southern California. The other rental was a white Beretta, with the driver’s door so poorly aligned that the wind just howled through it at any speed. Interior plastics were atrocious, and misaligned to boot. Granted I was in my full-on Japanese car fan boy stage, but in no way did these even come close to competing with the Accord, Camry or 626. The C/B duo were undoubtedly cheaper than the Asians, both with lower MSRPs and I’m sure huge discounts, but a perfect case of getting MUCH less for less money. And exacerbated by the horrible resale, so the unfortunate original retail buyers just kept getting screwed. This was truly the era where GM absolutely blew it.

It was like there were three experiments going on at that time with GM cars. 1. All-new, homegrown state of the art (Saturn). 2. Captive imports (Nova). 3. Old school, refreshed carryover but with competitive fit/finish (Corsica).

The company failed at all three. I’m dumfounded GM could think even for a second that 2 and 3 were sustainable. I know CAFE had a lot to do with it but still other companies like Chrysler figured it out with their LH and cloud cars.

It wasn’t just poor management, it was lack of competence throughout the company.

You must be joking. They were fantastic cars in the things gone right department. They looked great, sounded great, were roomy, comfortable, solid and set the benchmark for mid-size FWD handling.

They weren’t designed for fleets they were designed to compete head to head against the imports, which is what GM should have done long before the 07 Malibu. By then it was too late.

I honestly have no idea how the cloud cars held up. I think as car guys we all love and respect the VW Rabbit. It, like the Cirrus, was successful. But reliability on the early VAG FWD products was just awful.

I’m not talking about that, I’m taking about the competitiveness, like we do with the Rabbit.

With you again. When I first drove a Dodge Stratus rental, I was very surprised at how much I liked it. The styling was slick, the roominess was incredible, and I do recall it handled reasonably well. Wasn’t a fan of the cheap plastics inside … and of course lingering concerns about ChryCo quality would have scared me off. But I would have at least been tempted to give it a shot, versus never, ever even consider in the case of the Corsica/Beretta.

Brendan Saur

Posted July 17, 2013 at 1:34 PM

I agree. I’m actually in the process of writing a Cloud Car CC, and described my personal experience with the Stratus just as you did.

Nothing Chrysler has ever made could be described as “class leading” in terms of the reliability and build quality department. Of course comparing the interior of a 2013 car with a 1995 Chrysler Cirrus is like apples and oranges.

Nonetheless the Cloud Cars were a groundbreaking design, and far from “garbage”.

jpcavanaugh

Posted July 17, 2013 at 2:20 PM

“Nothing Chrysler has ever made could be described as “class leading” in terms of the reliability and build quality department. ”

Ahem – I think for those old enough, Chrysler products from the beginning up certainly into the early 1950s, Chrysler was synonymous with excellent build quality and brute durability. Chrysler products had higher resales than most other cars, and even the new ones sold at a bit of a premium. Unfortunately, once K.T. Keller was out the door (he retired in 1956) things went to hell and have never really recovered for any length of time.

I liked the LH cars on paper as well as the Cloud cars, we had deep respect for Francois Castaing and his mostly veteran AMC crew that designed them. Willem Weertman did the 3.3 and 3.5 which were both good motors. The 2.7 and Mitsubishi 2.5 V6 were too complicated motors for plebian usage and service was a nightmare.

The biggest problem with the LH cars, and to a lesser extent the Cloud cars was that the design was too expensive for the price point desired. They were not able to be sold as premium full size like the LX cars and the cheapening showed. We felt that aside from trim, the suspension was the weakest. Chrysler started to use integrated pieces, like replacing the whole control arm instead of individual pieces which was simpler for service but more expensive for the customer. IMO, Chrysler did not do enough service engineering work for the vehicles, they were a chore to service and even years later, still expensive.

I drove a Dodge Stratus sedan 2.5 V6 in 1999 for a week as a comparison study. It was equipped about midway as to be expected from the Dodge line at that time. The car drove reasonably well, but as indicated, basic servicing was a chore the engine compartment for V6 models was a tight fit. Removal of one or more wheels was necessary often.

I agree, they were pretty, both looking and awful. I don’t love the Rabbit, it was garbage too, new, innovative, but terrible, and it didn’t even have the benefit of being pretty, its like a DeHaviland Comet, yes its was pretty and new and innovative, but it also came apart and killed everyone.

I dealt with plent of LH and Cloud cars as trade in and they were attractive crap.

Ok, competivieness right, nevermind whatever hapened to GM, lets just focus on the Rabbit and the vaunted LH and Cloud cars.

The Rabbit and its ilk were so “competetive” that VW closed its Westmoreland PA plant and was on the verge of leaving the US market atogether by the 1990’s

The LH and Cloud cars were so “competetive” that Chrylser went near bankruptcy, again…and is now part of Fiat.

Hey, it’s okay to like crap cars, trust me, I like LOTS of them, but don’t sit there and tell me that a turd is really a toblerone.

calibrick

Posted July 17, 2013 at 11:01 PM

“…but it also came apart and killed everyone.” Everyone?! LOL OK.

The Westmoreland Rabbit was nothing like the one from Germany, we had both in the family. The US version sucked for suspension tuning and material quality. Someone at VW bought into the conventional wisdom that Americans like their cars soft riding, and don’t care about handling. Sadly they are repeating the same mistake with the current uber generic Jetta and Passat. This time someone convinced the brass that vanilla sells.

Then there were the horrible US suppliers that couldn’t copy leatherette so they supplied a close substitute, rubber. These suppliers were run by salary men types that didn’t give a s*** about quality. No wonder so many of the Japanese and European transplants use parts from foreign suppliers, they just make them here in the states.

GM had the double whammy of bad design quality and bad supplier quality. The ultimate “I don’t give a s*** about my company or job” is when you have your supplier “black box” the parts for you. Classic 90s GM.

What kind of CC post on a GM car would it be without the enlightened one’s doing their best bashing.

I especially enjoy those from out of country who have never even seen or driven one and have less than a clue 99% of the time.

The there are those that talk up Chrysler products….yes, I thought I’d never see it, but Chrysler products of the 80’s and 90’s as being better than any other brand out there.

Lets not forget our friend from the North, who must be on vacation because he is remarkably silent this week, who wasn’t even in North America during the time when the majority of the cars he is dumping on were sold and on the road…

The Corsica is a new one on me though it does appear to use VN Commodore headlights however the horrid Cavalier is quite familiar these awful cars turn up here ex JDM and are absolute rubbish the worst car you can buy. The only thing that sells them is the transplanted Toyota badge on the front the car itself is an off shoot of the terrible J series junk even the Aussies stopped trying to export their Horrible Camira to NZ by the 90s and then this crap turns up, and you guys wonder why I’m not a great fan of lots of American cars.

Hey Bryce, I thought the lights might be shared with the VN Commode as well. And the interior plastics and paint seems to be as crappy as the VN too. Those cars seemed to go from brand new to old banger in only about three years.

When I sold Chevrolets for a brief period in 1996, there were some interesting cars on the lot, tis was the last year of the C4, the Camaro Z28 was always as blast, the Impala SS was cool, even the new Blazers and Cavaliers were selling pretty well, but there were 3 cars on the lot that NO ONE ever ever even asked to test drive, number one was sickly metallic orange cheap Corsica (Carsicka? Corpsica?) cheapo baser sedan, number 2 was Beretta, I’ll count them as one, but we actually had 2, one was while base Beretta with Whorehouse Red(TM) interior, I did actually show this one to a customer one, because we had it up right by the showroom…trying to move it, but the kid wasn’t interested, the other Beretta was a seldom seen PURPLE Z26, it sat next to the abandoned orange Corsicka on the far end of the lot.

In ’89 when I was buying my first (and, it turns out, only) new car, I test-drove a high-trim Cavalier. Meh. The salesman steered me to an entry-level Beretta for a little less money. Zing. Muuuuuuuch better — roomier, no drag-ass driving position, and marginally usable back seat. No comparison.

These both were very familiar sights in my youth, I remember doing a 360 degree spin on a snow covered two lane highway in the back seat of a friend’s… I’m guessing … ’89 or ’90 Corsica with the ocean on one side and a small lake on the other. Somehow he straightened it out and kept going without even stopping.

Another thing about the Corsica that I recall is that every single one was missing the fuel filler door just like the featured car is.. and this is when these were fairly new cars. Heck, the white one in the 1990 promo video looks like it’s filler door is about to fall off too.

I was not a big fan of the Corsica. When it first appeared, I thought it was a bad ripoff of the then-current Taurus, which was still in it’s first generation. I was in love with the original Taurus at the time (I hadn’t had the “armageddon” Ford yet, that was to come), but truly, compared to that car, everything else seemed like an also ran. I can remember when the hatchback was released, I was slightly more interested in it; but by then I had a Dodge Lancer Turbo ES, which was the same size and roughly the same power. I saw no reason to trade it for a Corsica hatch. I wish we had those choices now…

I sold cars during the early 90’s, did a little time at a small Chevy dealer in Georgia. I remember the upgraded versions and finally it’s descent into rental hell. When I moved to Grand Rapids, my across-the-street neighbor had one, a silver rental spec version. She drove it for six years until it became unreliable (although I think her teen-aged son helped in that regard). During that time, I saw it parked across the street from me every day, I eventually grew acclimated to the styling. Very subtle, even generic, but as you age, your ideas of beauty change.

Now I look back at some of those cars and think, maybe it wasn’t that bad after all… As much of a GM fanboi as I am now, those things were still pretty bad. Fit, finish, materials… All built to a price… And not a high one.

Someone mentioned the later Chrysler “cloud” cars as competition. Only in the latter years of the Corsica’s run; the even more-ancient Tempo/Topaz twins and the Spirit/Acclaim duo were it’s main domestic competition. The Accord, Camry and Maxima were all growing up into mid-sized cars, VW had it’s expensive Passat, but none of those cars were direct competition, but in a sense they were.

If I could find a really nice LTZ might be fun, but for that era of GM I think I’d look for an early W-body Grand Prix Turbo…

This year’s Tour de France makes me wonder how many Corsicas made it to Corsica. It’s not unlikely some really might have since these were also sold in France, however, without the flush headlamps in some years, for some reason.

Those automatic seat belts do look very uncomfortable and fussy. For how long were they mandatory, and was there any way to get around them?

I had an ’89 Beretta with the door-mounted seat belts. The idea was that you left them buckled and climbed in and out of the car that way; the system automatically belted you in when you shut the door. But the truth was that you could just use the belt like any normal car, buckling it only after you got in and shut the door.

I’m not aware (am I missing something?) that the C/B ever used motorized belts.

What a rare find, two Massachusetts vehicles with the green and white license plate. The Cavalier has too much plastic on it, but other than that it is an alright background car I might miss when they are all gone. Same thing with the Corsica, alright background fodder, would probably not want to buy one though. The lack of fender lips is an interesting feature I never really focused on until now. I once saw a Tempest version of one of these with New York plates, guess it was a grey market import.

The Beretta/Corsica – peanut brittle on wheels. Cheapie interiors and the entire car would flex and rattle over moderately bumpy roads. That, couple with the weak standard 4-cyl and the 3-sp. auto. It was awful. The nicest thing they had going for them was the attractive cloth seats, but that was about it.

The one thing I remember about the “Cloud” cars was the fact that the window seals, especially the first year, constantly fell apart. I had my Neon Sport in for the umpteenth time and I was talking to the guy at the repair desk about how crappy my Neon was and he flat out told me that it was nothing compared to the Cirrus-Stratus twins. Chrysler was lauded for bringing an entirely new platform to market in a short time and under $1 billion, but the devil was in the details as a result. Cost-cutting was malignant.

>>“The nicest thing they had going for them was the attractive cloth seats”

Ha! Funny thing: those seats were among the cars’ biggest downfalls. After about Year Three, they started coming apart at the seams. It is difficult to find one that doesn’t have a shredded driver’s seat. Most Corsicas/Berettas that I see around (and I do still see a lot of them around) have Wal-Mart aftermarket seat covers on them to contain the blizzard of yellow fuzz that escapes when the thin, cheap, mouse fur material splits, dissolves and disappears.

As for the missing passenger seat, that’s funny because my Beretta is missing its passenger seat as well. Almost all of these cars left the factory with holes burned through the firewall below the windshield wiper motor, leading to a rain leak that pools water in the passenger side footwell. I guess they misprogrammed the assembly robots. After a lot of years, the seat anchors rust away and then you can simply slide the seat forward on its track and lift it right out of the car.

In 1994, I bought a brand new Chevrolet Corsica. It was the base model. It was a nice car, and we did not have any mechanical problems with it at all. Unfortunately, we were in a terrible car accident in 1997, and it was totaled.

It was a good commuter car. I commute 21 miles to work; 42 miles round trip. It was good on gas. I also thought that it drove well in the snow.

It was replaced by a 1998 Malibu. The Malibu was bigger, but it was a piece of junk. We actually “traded down” on a 1999 Cavalier, just to get rid of it. The ’99 Cavalier was a four door model. We kept it until we had our second child and needed more space. Of course, we bought a mini-van.

Back to the Corsica — it was not as small as the Cavalier. The back seat was decent. Probably by ’94, all of the issues were worked out. Again, it wasn’t the most exciting car, but it was a good daily driver. It was cheap to insure and maintain.

I agree that the bugs seemed to be worked out by the end of the run. A close friend of my mother’s bought a new Corsica in ’95 when her Subaru GL was totaled. She was 66 at the time, and bought the car on the advice of her slightly older brother-in-law who was a die-hard Chevy man, so it fits the “old ladies” demographic.

19 years later, that Corsica is still in her driveway and, except for a dent in the rear door and some minor paint oxidization from living its entire life outside, still looks pretty good. Almost never sees long trips so the mileage is very low for its age (I don’t think it’s even at 75K yet) but she still drives it a few times a week, and has had very few problems with it over the years. A far better car than I expected it to be.

A college friend, on the other hand, had one of the early-run cars, I think an ’88 or ’89, and by the time he was driving it around 2000 it was utterly trashed. He somehow got it to last until a bit after graduation with duct tape and baling wire, and then traded it in on a Honda S2000 almost immediately once he had a job.

Two very different ends of the quality spectrum between the early and the late cars, it seems.

I had an 89 Corsica as my first American car. It was a very surprising car. It has solar roof, air conditioner, electric windows (all 4), six cylinder, pretty fast in the highway… so I was impressed after driving all my life Euro econoboxes with almost no equipment at all… but after all the details it still have the idiot gauges.

The original Corsicas were available with a column shift until the dash redesign, though there was never a bench seat offered. The Beretta, however, was not available with the column shift. I had an ex girlfriend with a 1990 Beretta GT in white with the red cloth interior. It was a fair car for what it was. She loved that car though, until it was totalled in an accident.

Ugh, this thread kills me. All the Anti-GM and Cav haters out there… I bought a ‘Program’ 1993 Z-24 directly from GM. (Dad worked for EDS at the time, and we were eligible.) At the time I got it, there was only 2400 miles on it. So it was basically new. I drove that beauty all over putting on over 200K miles in 15 years.

That red Z-24 in the picture is the either a 93 or 94, likely the 93, in fact it is the same color as mine. The 92’s had the grey two tone bottom rockers. They were all assembled in Lordstown, Ohio. (Huge plant, you should take a tour some time, the plant is amazing.)

The day I turned in my Z-24 was a sad day, but while the engine and transmission were still going strong the many years of living up north had taken their toll on the frame, and it was too rusted to continue with. (Salt does that.) So take it easy on knocking the Cav, sure the base models were lackluster, but what do you expect all American cars were big heavy and were just starting to return to really design cars that made you want to shout for joy. I honestly think that the Z-24 from 92-95 really was a sharp car.

From a durability standpoint, the Cavalier was one of GM’s best kept secrets. The initial ’82 was problematic (couldn’t get that 1.8 to run/idle no matter what you did), but after that, they turned into a more than decent car. I don’t think anyone really knows what the outer life expectancy of the car was, since rust wasn’t a problem in the Pacific Nwst.

Yep, I should have gotten Chevrolet Celebrity in this shade of red rather than the fleet special medium grey metallic.

Actually, it wasn’t my choice to get Chevrolet. The stars aligned so perfectly that day when I desperately needed a car to replace the horrendously alcoholic Buick and didn’t have much money to spend. I bought it from my father’s district office for $900.

These cars were released in fall 1987 as very early 1989 models, and this resulted in the rules getting changed for model year identification. Afterwards the law was changed to only allow one model year ahead of the January 1st current year. For instance, January 1st 2018 just rolled by, so a manufacturer from that date onward can brand/sell a 2019 model vehicle but no sooner than that January 1, 2018 date.

Because my first car was a J-body (an ’84 Cavalier wagon with the 2.0L TBI Four), and my parents owned a W-body with the 3.1 V6 at the time (a base ’94 Cutlass Supreme), I remember thinking in high school that a Corsica with the 3.1 option was some kind of hot rod, and lusting after it as a result. I never drove one, and this surely helped maintain my status as the only kid in school who must have wanted or cared about these at all.

The Corsica is a nice car, but it seems the spam between Lumina and Cavalier is too short for him, something like the Toyota Corona in the middle of Camry and Corolla. I like the Opel-ish frontal design of the Corsica, it would fit better in the Opel Vectra A nose. In the other hand its body looks as wishy-washy as the Ford Verona. In the case of the Ford one, it’s worse as it came to light a year after the Corsica death.